Despite thousands of new nursing graduates each year, Australia continues to face a nursing shortage.
It seems the issue lies less in attracting new nurses than retaining them in the profession, ensuring the supply meets the growing demand for health workers.
In 2022, there were 362,855 nurses registered and employed across Australia—an increase of 36,573 since 2017, according to a government report.
Yet the growth was still not enough to meet the growing pressure on the health system.
Workforce data suggests retention is a major concern, particularly during the transition from study to the workplace.
Research has suggested between 17 and 50 per cent of graduate nurses leave the field within their first year of practice.
Despite an increase in graduate numbers between 2004 and 2019, 26 per cent fewer graduates were working as registered nurses six months after graduation.
For many graduates, the initial exposure to real-world care is confronting.
2026 University of Wollongong (UOW) graduate nurse Reuben Whitford has felt overwhelmed moving into full-time work in a clinical setting.
“Deterioration is very real, and acting on it as a nurse is kind of scary when you’re a new grad,” he said.
Mr Whitford said what was expected of graduates upon beginning full-time work exceeds what their training prepares them for.
“Three years feels like it’s not long enough,” he said.
Nonetheless, national workforce research suggests nurses who remain in the profession beyond six months after graduation are more likely to stay long term: 91 per cent of graduates who stayed for six months were still working in nursing three years later.
This emphasises the importance of early support to build sustainable careers for entry-level nurses.
Burnout is a major contributing factor to early exits.
The AHPRA survey data found nearly one-third of health practitioners who left their profession cited burnout as the primary reason.
In the demanding environment of orthopaedics, Mr Whitford said the emotional strain is evident quickly.
“It almost looks like there’s an innocence ripped out of them,” he said of new graduates entering the ward,” he said.
Professional bodies argue that early-career attrition is preventable. The Australian College of Nursing has repeatedly called for stronger graduate transition-to-practice programs to manage workloads more realistically and provide better support for graduate nurses.
In his first month on the job, Mr Whitford has begun to reassess the sustainability of a career in nursing.
“Sometimes it makes no sense why you go back,” he said. “But you do.”
His experience reflects a broader reality across nursing. Australia’s nursing shortage reflects both rising demand for nurses and the difficulty of retaining them long term.
The Nursing Supply and Demand Study projects a significant national undersupply of 70,707 nurses by 2035, most notably in acute care, primary care and aged care.
In a statement to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, Professor Jane Mills, Dean of La Trobe University’s Rural Health School, offered insight into the lack of long-term strategic planning.
“We’ve ended up trapped in a cycle of using a large number of agency staff and locums—so short-term employment contracts, particularly in regional, rural and more remote areas,” she said.
“What was most worrying in the report was that the biggest projected shortage is in acute care. We’re looking at a future where we are going to see more ambulance ramping, we’re going to see closure of wards, we’re going to see longer waiting lists because there won’t be sufficient nurses to be able to provide the services required.”
Both rising demand for nursing and weak early-career retention reveal the necessity for graduates to receive proper support in the most vulnerable stage of their career. That support is central to building a sustainable healthcare system.
